In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.

The Social Security dynamic just keeps getting more and more interesting. For the first time in the Bush presidency, there is a serious fragmentation of GOP unity.

Health care policy and health care reform are back in the news in a big way. The Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the 2010 health care overhaul. The Obama administration has just released guidelines for the operation of the state-based insurance exchanges that are the backbone of the law.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

Barack Obama's 17-minute video "The Road We've Traveled" gives us an idea of how he wants to frame the issues in the fall election. The visuals are oddly antique for a president who promised hope and change.

The governments in Russia and China very much want to uphold the principle that every now and then the state must crush people who want freedom. That is why they worked together to veto a fairly toothless United Nations resolution condemning the regime in Syria and calling for President Bashar Assad, the lipless murderer who runs the place, to step down.

The former Massachusetts governor is increasingly looking to be the nominee. In the general election, all he need do is say he's against Obamacare.

As in Chicago, President Obama seems to live in a cocoon in which Republicans are largely absent, offscreen actors that no one pays any attention to.